Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/307

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The Legacy of the Scarlet Hands
295

passion, whereon Philip would attack him with unreasoning violence. The fit of fury past, and the mischief done, repentance came. In these moods Philip must have expended thousands of pounds in his attempts to soothe the feelings of the brother whom he had just been battering. One of these scenes had taken place just before Edwin's departure for India; it was the usual plaster which had enabled him to start upon his travels. That his brother's treatment of him rankled, there was scarcely room for doubt; the purchase of the scarlet puppet was, probably a firstfruit of his morbid brooding.

At the very last, possibly, the crime had been the result of a moment's impulse—as he himself had said. But that it had been prepared for, as likely to happen some time, was clear. He had obtained a suit of clothes, which was exactly like those which his brother was in the habit of wearing. These he secreted in his bedroom. So soon as his "goddess" had done her work, he stripped what was left of his brother bare—an awful task it must have been. He arrayed the body in a suit of his own clothes, oblivious of the fact that they showed no signs of the cutting and the hacking, and the suit which he had prepared he himself put on.

Whether or not he saw me—or even if I was actually there to see—is not clear to this day.